by Bryan Brown, PhD
Farmers tell me all the time – “If only my crops could grow like weeds!” Well that’s just what happened to Jonathan Bates, owner of Food Forest Farm, who noticed that some of his edible perennial plants were taking over his garden. These are big and robust plants that smother our usual weeds – perfect for low-maintenance gardens. So he starting cutting back these plants and selling the rootstock online.
Excited by the idea of crops that outcompete weeds, I recently toured the farm with Jonathan. He showed me thick stands of edible perennial brassicas like horseradish, sea kale, and Turkish rocket; thriving carrot-family perennials like skirret and giant Korean celery; and leguminous plants like wild senna, Illinois bundleflower, and Astragalus that serve as high-nitrogen forage for livestock while also providing pollinator resources and building soil fertility.
A huge advantage with perennials is that you don’t have to rototill the ground every year to prepare for planting. That has big benefits aside from being a labor-saver. Any time the soil is tilled, it accelerates decomposition of organic matter and loss of carbon to the atmosphere. Whereas perennial plantings serve as a carbon sink by sequestering atmospheric carbon into plant tissue that eventually becomes soil organic matter. Such “carbon farming” is starting to become big business as a means to forestall climate change.
With so many benefits to these perennial crops, I think it’s just a matter of time before we see more farmers start growing them – and we start seeing them on our dinner plates!
